the law has been appropriately written and they can then ratify or reject the decisions that elected officials make on their behalf. now when it comes to most government functions, the public can directly observe the functions of government and the typical citizen can decide for themselves whether they support or agree with the things that their government is doing. american citizens can visit our national forests. we take particular pride in them in our part of of the country, and decides for themselves whether the forests are being appropriately managed. when our citizens drive on the interstate, they can decide for themselves whether those highways have been properly laid out and adequately maintained. if they see that an individual is being punished, they can make judgments for themselves whether that sentence was too harsh or too lenient. but they generally can't decide for themselves whether intelligence agencies are operating within the law. that's why as u.s. intelligence community evolved over the past several decades, the congress has set up a number of watchdog and oversig
